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All posts for the month November, 2010

I was watching Mirza Ghalib last night, as part of my own little Suraiya festival, and as with Diwana (mentioned in my last post), there was a musical scene that caused me a big delay in getting through the movie, because I had to play it over and over again. But this time the cause was not Suraiya herself, nor was it even Kumkum (who has a very nice debut in this film), nor was it even the splendid voice of Mohammed Rafi… This time, it was a dance by someone I’ve seen in only two films. I watched this dance before, just a few months ago, but I hadn’t had the pleasure yet of being surprised by it in the middle of the movie, and it does appear seemingly out of nowhere and disappear far too soon. I posted it a few months ago also, but here’s a refresher for those who might have missed it:

Of course, that is not the film scene that she’s most known for… And I know I have posted that scene, from Jalsaghar, a couple of times before, including in that post that I did just a few months ago. Moreover, you have probably seen these dances even more recently if you are a regular visitor to Minai’s blog. But on the other hand, where these dances are concerned, I don’t think there is such a thing as seeing them too recently or too often. So, as another “refresher” (meaning an excuse to post and watch it again), here’s that spectacular dance from Satyajit Ray’s Music Room:

The last time I posted these dances, Sophy asked me if I “had a post” about Roshan Kumari or even a bio, and I had to answer that I had nothing more to offer. Once again, it was taking a long time to find information about one of the greatest dancers in Indian films. It’s not as though she’s been underappreciated either – lots of people refer to her as a famous kathak dancer – but it seemed as though it was simply impossible to find a full post or bio or anything like that…

But I did find something during the past day. In fact, a student of hers named Mukta Joshi put up a full biography and tribute, My Guru-Padmashree Dr. Roshan Kumariji. And it is a delightful page!

I also happened to find another page with a bio about her, but it is very short and doesn’t tell us much more. Plus, between them, these pages left me confused regarding some things – especially the identity of Roshan Kumari’s mother, since I couldn’t figure out whether she was (better) known as Zhora Begum (as stated in one post) or Zohra Jan (as mentioned in the other)…

And then I found out that she was best known as Zohrabai Ambalewali! I didn’t believe this at first (although there were enough hints pointing to this fact), but thanks to Vidur Sury (see comments below) for setting me straight that Roshan Kumari was indeed the daughter of Zohrabai! And thanks to posts at Sargam and Cineplot for confirming that too…

So, I am left feeling as though I have to see more… More bios, more photos, and also more dance clips.

And by the way, the longer bio mentions that she also studied bharatanatyam, something I didn’t know. I would love to see her doing that! And the shorter bio mentions other films she’s been in. She was in Waris (1954), and she was in Basant Bahar. If anyone could make the scene(s) with her in those films available, that would be fantastic. (Much as I love those two dances with Roshan Kumari – and because I do love them – two dances are just not enough!)

Finally, thanks to Minai, we get to see clips of Kamala dancing during her legendary “Baby” prodigy days of the early ’40s. Specifically, there are two scenes up from 1943. One, her short dance in Kismet, was actually a major breakthrough for her, but I think the other, from Ram Rajya, is even better.

For a long time, I have wondered why we never got to see any Kamala dances on YouTube or Dailymotion that came from films made before 1947. (There is one scene on YouTube from the Tamil version of Meera, which came out in 1945, but it only shows Kamala briefly standing in her Kirishna pose. Nivedita aka Alaknanda posted great dances from the Hindi version of that movie, but that came out in 1947. And, of course, you can find Kamala’s dances from Naam Iruvar (1947), but the best dances aren’t even separated; they have to be found somewhere in the middle of full, ten-plus-minute installments of the film.) Historically, it was BABY Kamala who made bharatanatyam a popular and respectable ingredient in Indian cinema, and BABY Kamala whose influence via cinema led many parents to send their small girls for bharatanatyam training way back in the early ’40s, at least five years before anyone got to see films featuring the Travancore Sisters or Vyjayanthimala. So why haven’t we gotten to see those earlier dances online?

Clearly, from what Minai says, it’s not lack of availability, since the VCDs for these films are available from Induna. So, the only answer is simple neglect. But Minai has somewhat corrected that problem (not only on her blog but on YouTube also, or at least it seems this is her site, despite the mysteriously different user name).

And by the way, I was so inspired by seeing these new postings of Baby Kamala, that I finally put together a Kamala playlist. There are only 19 videos in this one (with only 17 that have Kamla’s fantastic dancing, while two just have those brief flashes of her dressed up as Krishna in the middle of beautiful songs by M.S. Subbulaxmi – but how could I not include those also?)… Still, that’s probably more than twice as many as I would have hoped to find online just a year ago. And it would be great to be able to add more to that list sometime…

Thanks to Anirban for pointing this out in a recent comment on my two-year-old Uday Shankar/Kalpana post… A new video has been posted that is the first I’ve seen on YouTube of a Uday Shankar dance being performed by Uday Shankar himself, in a clip from 1932 being played in the present day on his brother Ravi’s TV set. The scenes of Uday Shankar are quite special, and this whole clip would have been better had we gotten to see more of Uday Shankar’s dancing and less of those two pop stars lazing on the couch. But with any luck, we’ll get to see more Uday Shankar in another clip… And maybe the restored 1948 Kalpana one of these days…

Not really the same song, but two fine mujras with basically the same title that came out at roughly the same time.

(Asha on Padmini, from Mera Naam Joker, 1970. Male singer is Manna Dey (on an amusingly disguised Raj Kapoor?), music directors are Shankar Jaikishan.) (BTW, I am pretty certain this song wasn’t even on my Shemaroo copy of the film. I can’t go through the whole disc beause it’s a bit trashed now, but I don’t even see it in the menus.)

(From Umrao Jaan Ada, 1972 (predating a few Indian films based on that novel…). Runa Laila on Rani, music director is Nisar Bazmi.)

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